Abstract：Abstract: This paper reports a comparative investigation into the differences and similarities in the use of lexical bundles (LBs) by English and Chinese native speakers (ENSs and CNSs) in their academic English writing. Using a corpus of research articles (RAs) from the fields of Physics, Computer Science, Linguistics and Management written by ENSs and CNSs, we present the data to reveal that: (1) there are more uses of LBs in Physics and Linguistics RAs than in Management and Computer Science and the writing of CNSs is characterized by a pattern of relative LB overuse, both in terms of token and type; (2) CNSs use more prepositional and text-oriented LBs, but less noun phrases and research-oriented LBs than ENSs; and (3) Chinese linguists’ use of LBs shows affinity with native linguists’, computer and management scientists’, and similar patterns are found between Chinese physicists’ and computer scientists’ LB use and native physicists’. The findings demonstrate that core bundles exist to some extent and disciplinary convention exerts more impact on writers’ use of LBs than their native languages; CNSs are prone to employ grammatical structures to depict objectivity and text-oriented LBs for the construction of explicit text cohesion.
Key words: lexical bundles; ENSs and CNSs; corpus; academic writing
